Morning Run
by PFTones3482
Summary: Marco is out jogging one morning and he comes across none other than Jackie Lynn Thomas being hassled by a monster. While giving her a helping hand, Marco discovers something he did not expect. One-shot.


**Okay...so I wrote a thing where Oskar was a vampire, and now I'm going to jump on the Jackie being a mermaid bandwagon. Because why not?**

 **So enjoy!**

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GENERAL POV

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Marco could have slept in Saturday morning. He could have buried his nose back under his covers, shut his alarm off, and dozed back off into his dream about dragons with rainbow lasers (Star was really starting to rub off on him).

Instead, he found himself jogging down the road in sweatpants and a t-shirt, panting for breath and struggling not to collapse on the ground.

Marco hadn't worked out in a long time, and that had started to become very apparent during his and Star's latest battles with Ludo. Monsters were grabbing him more often, he was out of breath faster than he should be, and all in all Marco was tired of being a burden.

Hence the reason he was outside at 7 am in the middle of summer on a Saturday.

Marco heaved a final breath and collapsed in the nearest bench he could find, which allowed him to gaze out over the city docks and at the flowing river in front of him.

He had to admit, while he wasn't a huge fan of dragging his body out of bed at the crack of dawn, Marco did enjoy watching the sunrise, especially given the gorgeous colors that spread across the water, the waves turning golden and red. He leaned back against the bench and took several deep breaths and a swig of water from the bottle he held in his left hand.

It was a fairly gorgeous day already. The birds were chirping in the trees around him, cars were puttering up and down the road, someone down at the docks was screaming, the breeze was rustling Marco's hair-

The boy sat straight up.

Someone was screaming.

Marco bolted from his seat, deserting his water bottle on the concrete pavement, and sprinted down the steps to the docks, screeching to a halt when he reached the edge and whipping his head around to see where the screams were coming from.

"Jackie Lynn Thomas?" Marco said in utter confusion.

Sure enough, his crush was backed up against one of the boats, being held there by-what else?-a monster. Marco scowled and clenched his fists, storming over to Dock 1-A and planting his hands on his sweaty hips. "Hey ugly!" he yelled.

The monster spun around and Marco recognized him as one of Ludo's background minions. He sneered, showing off what resembled shark teeth, and started towards Marco.

"Marco, are you nuts?" Jackie hissed, brushing the blue streak of hair from her eyes.

He didn't answer the question, mostly because he wasn't sure himself, and stared the monster down. "Why aren't you chasing Star and me?" he asked sincerely.

The monster rolled his bloodshot green eyes. "What, you think Princess Butterfly is the only one in this dimension Ludo is after? There are other exchange students here that he wants to get ahold of, and she's one of them."

He gestured towards Jackie with an annoyed wave of his arm and Marco blinked in bewilderment. "Jackie? She's not an exchange student."

The monster snickered. "You wouldn't think so, because she's been one since she was a toddler."

Marco glanced at Jackie and found the girl staring at the dock and clutching her skateboard to her chest. "Jackie?"

The girl looked at him with a wince. "He's right, Marco. I couldn't tell anyone, 'cause then he would have found me sooner. Plus, I can't hide as easily as Star can."

Marco wanted to protest that this wasn't possible, but somehow he knew it was. Even if she wasn't telling the truth, he wasn't about to let this monster hurt her. "Okay...you wouldn't happen to have any kind magic item like Star to help us, would you?"

Jackie glanced down at her skateboard. "Uhhhh kinda. But it only works in...special conditions."

Before Marco could respond, the monster finally got irritated and smacked the wooden part of his axe, which had originally been across his back, into Marco's chest, sending the teenager flying into a pile of oars and life rafts, most of which toppled onto him.

"Marco!" Jackie yelped. She spun on the monster as Marco began clambering his way back towards the docks. He stumbled from the pile of fallen debris, picked up an oar, and ran to the fight.

Jackie seemed to be holding her own, using her skateboard to duck around and under the monster in front of her, but before Marco could reach her, the monster snatched Jackie into one of his grubby hands, knocked her skateboard into the river, and pulled out his dimensional scissors.

Marco started sprinting, put the oar out in front of him, and used it as a pole to thrust him up into the air and kick the monster in the chest away from the portal. It closed in midair and Marco landed on the dock and spun around to face the monster.

"Let her go," he growled.

The monster rolled his eyes. "Seriously? Are you seriously going to go into this right now?"

"Uh, yeah," Marco said, throwing his arms out. "That's kind of why I'm still here."

Jackie angrily kicked at the monster holding her and he glared at her. "Will you knock that off?"

She basically spat at him. "Let me go, you smelly little-"

The monster clapped a hand over her mouth, pressed her to the dock, and pulled out his scissors again. Marco dove at the monster, tackling the beast and unintentionally making the monster knock Jackie into the river.

"You idiot," the monster growled. "Now I have no chance!"

Before Marco could react, the monster snatched his hand over the edge of the dock, yanked out Jackie's skateboard-why, Marco had no idea-and jumped for the scissors.

The portal glowed in mid-air and Marco clambered to his feet, wincing a little as his ankle twisted, and ran for the monster as he dove into the next dimension. Marco grabbed a hold of Jackie's skateboard and yanked it back towards him. The monster swung his axe at the Latino, making him duck. He kept a hold of the skateboard and leaned his entire body backwards, well aware that Jackie was still in the water below him.

With a lunge, he managed to rip the board from the monster's grip just as the portal snapped shut, and Marco flew backwards, hitting the dock hard enough to send pain screaming through his body. The skateboard hit next to him, snapping in half both from the force of the hit and the tugging that had gone on between Marco and the monster.

"Shoot," he heard Jackie say from the edge of the deck. "Not again."

Marco sat up and looked at the broken skateboard. "Gosh, Jackie, I'm sorry. That's the second time I've broken it."

He got to his feet and looked over at the girl as she glanced up and down the boardwalk, her fingers turning white as she held herself up . "Uh...it's no big. But uh, there is kind of a dilemma and I need yours and Star's help."

Marco nodded. "Yeah, of course." He brushed off his shirt and walked over to her carefully. "Hey, so anyway, what dimension are you fr-?"

He cut himself off as Jackie's lower half came into view: a bright blue fish tail that exactly matched the streak in her hair and green bathing suit top. "Oh. Uhhhhh..."

Jackie rolled her eyes. "Just help me up. With my skateboard broken, which is my family crest disguised, I can't change back to normal."

Marco winced and grabbed her by the elbows, dragging her onto the dock completely and thinking how lucky she was that it was so early on a weekend and no one was around. He pulled out his cell phone and handed Jackie the two pieces of her skateboard as he dialed the home phone. His mother picked up, her voice weary from being interrupted from her sleep. "Marco? What is it, I thought you were out jogging?"

"Can you put Star on the phone Mom? I need her to come down to the docks."

There was a lot of rustling, several surprised puppy yips, the sound of things falling over, something that sounded like a lion roaring, and a loud thump before Star got on the phone. "Marco? What is it?"

"Hey, Star, I need you to come down to the docks. I'm with Jackie and...well, you'll see when you get here. Bring your wand."

Star didn't question him, promising to get there as soon as she could before hanging up. Marco slid his phone into his sweatshirt pocket and knelt next to Jackie, sitting down cross legged at her side. "Soooo mermaid dimension?" he questioned, rolling his eyes to look at her.

Jackie snorted and tilted her flippers. "Yup. Weirded out?"

Marco pursed his lips and shrugged, leaning back on his hands. "Well, let's see. I've had an octopus tentacle as an arm, been inside of a gutted monster, fought dozens of bizarre looking monsters...so this is actually kind of normal. But if you knew Star was from another dimension, why didn't you say anything? And why were you sent here so young?"

Jackie grimaced. "One, because I didn't know if she would tell people. It's not exactly something I blab about. And I was sent here because my dimension had to go to war. All the really young kids were sent to different parts of Earth until the war is over. We all have a magic device that we can disguise to suit our personalities. But if it's broken, we're stuck in whatever form we're in when it's broken until we fix it."

Marco winced. "So the first time I broke it..."

"I was stuck as a human for three days until my friend Nancy got here from Ontario to fix it magically. I didn't know Star well enough to ask her."

Marco glanced over towards the staircase that led down to the docks and gave a thin smile. "Speaking of Star..."

"Marco!" the princess shouted, bounding down the boardwalk. "What did you need me to-?"

As soon as she laid eyes on Jackie, she scrambled to a halt and grinned. "Sweet! Jackie, you didn't tell us you were a mermaid!"

Jackie chuckled and curled her tail around her. "Yeah, and Star, I would like to keep it that way. Otherwise my people's enemies will be able to find me. Can you fix my skateboard? It's the only way I can get my legs back."

Star nodded. "Yeah, sure of course!"

The girl pointed her wand at the broken skateboard and squinted. "Mermaid skateboard seashell repair!"

Seashells spilled from the wand and surrounded the skateboard, fixing it in a matter of moments. As soon as the skateboard mended, Jackie's tail glowed neon blue and vanished, along with her swimsuit top. All of the light flowed into her seashell necklace and when it faded, she was back in her everyday clothing. Marco helped her to her feet and the trio started down the boardwalk, Jackie carrying her skateboard under one arm.

"Thanks for coming Star," the girl said, smiling sideways. "And Marco, thanks for getting my board back from them monster."

"Monster?" Star yelped. She slapped Marco lightly on the stomach." Why didn't you call me sooner?"

Marco shook his head." I didn't exactly have time for that. It was one of Ludo's minions, so I'm sure we'll see him again at some point."

Jackie grinned. "If you do, please blast him in the face for me."

Star nodded enthusiastically as they climbed the staircase back to the street. Jackie put her skateboard to the pavement and waved to the duo. "Thanks again, guys. See you around!"

She rolled off and Marco sighed. "It's been a long morning," he grumbled, glancing around and plucking his water bottle from where he had dropped it next to the bench.

Star clapped him on the back. "Cheer up, Marco! It's a bright sunshiny day, you have a crush on an inter-dimensional mermaid, and you got some jogging in this morning!"

Marco shook his head and laughed. "Somehow, Star, you always look on the bright side. Let's go home, I'll take a shower, and then why don't we head to the park?"

Star squealed with delight. "Deal! Race you there!"

She took off before Marco could say anything and he groaned.

Nope. He was never going to wake up early on a Saturday ever again.

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 **So idk how that turned out, considering I wrote it at like 2 am, but I enjoy it. Funny enough, the Suite Life on Deck episode about the mermaid came on while I was typing this.**

 **Sorry for any typos, once again I'm on my families tablet.**

 **Review please!**


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